Freedom Has a Face: Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia by Kirt von Daacke (review)

Kirt von Daacke’s Freedom Has a Face: Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia is a fascinating and path-breaking study of free people of color in Albemarle County, Virginia, from the Revolutionary War period through the late pre–Civil War years. His exploration of life in Albemarle County, home to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and the University of Virginia, provides another important example of social intimacy between free people of color and whites in the early United States. Von Daacke makes a strong case against the theses of Ulrich B. Phillips and Ira Berlin, which characterize free people of color as slaves without masters. Countering the view that free people of color lived in a highly segregated society in which whites largely despised them, von Daacke contends that the relationships between free people of color and whites in Albemarle County were quite intimate. He argues persuasively that free people of color were integral to their community until at least the 1840s, and, in some instances, well beyond that point. Whites in Albemarle County did not view free people of color as members of a monolithic, troublesome group but as individuals with personal reputations, familial connections, and societal value.

Von Daacke develops his thesis over six well-crafted chapters, using a variety of primary sources, including private papers, minute and order books, marriage records, wills, petitions, court cases, and census records. His first chapter examines the social position of free men of color who were Revolutionary War veterans. He deciphers stories of veterans such as Shadrach Battles, Charles Barnett, and Sherod Goings who moved from fighters in the war for American independence to active citizens in the new nation. In the following chapter, von Daacke investigates the social interactions of the generation that came to age after the revolution. Here, he stresses the importance of face-to-face interactions between free people of color and whites, and illuminates the ways free people of color became highly reputed individuals in their community. Chapter three continues to build on the reputation theme. Using examples from as late as the 1850s, von Daacke demonstrates how Albemarle County whites understood free people of color as individuals with specific values to the community and distinct reputations for trustworthiness. The next chapter takes readers into the local courtroom and discusses the situation for free people of color charged with crimes against white people. Chapter five shifts from the courthouse to the bawdy house and examines the experiences of free women of color involved in prostitution and related illicit activities. This section deconstructs another layer of interaction between free people of color and whites and reinforces von Daacke’s argument about the intimacy between two supposedly disparate categories of people. The book’s final chapter explores the family connections between free people of color and whites. In this chapter, von Daccke reveals the limited ability of racial categories, ideologies, and legal restrictions to prevent white men and free women of color from successfully nurturing their families. In Albemarle County, the law prohibited marriages between people of color and whites and restricted their living arrangements. Nevertheless, free women of color and white men cohabitated and had children together within the public view.

Freedom Has a Face is an essential part of the developing literature on free people of color in the pre–Civil War United States. Von Daacke alludes to the likelihood that the intimate relationships between free people of color and whites in late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Albemarle County were not unique to that community. His work should encourage scholars to continue investigating the social situations of free people of color in other communities. The importance of face-to-face contact examined in this work is likely transferable to studies beyond those involving free people of color. Local examinations of relations between whites and enslaved people using the face-to-face...